Otto Jakob

Haute Joaillerie

Otto Jakob (*1951) is a self-taught artist-goldsmith. At 17 years old Otto Jakob began to teach himself to make jewelry. Inspired by the magic and artistic power of Etruscan, Celtic and Hellenic masterpieces, he learned their complex techniques using treatises by Pliny and Cellini. Between 1977 and 1980 he studied painting with Georg Baselitz. Since 1980 he has devoted himself exclusively to the creation of jewelry. Otto Jakob employs 10 master goldsmiths in his atelier in Karlsruhe, and the output is limited to about 100 pieces a year. Despite this limitation, some of his customers have been able to build a collection of over 100 pieces in the course of the past 35 years. Early collectors of Otto Jakob’s works were renowned contemporary German artists including Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Markus Lüpertz, Günther Förg, and Sigmar Polke. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Otto Jakob’s most important market was the United States, where his main representation was by Janet Mavec t